January 07, 2010

The Center for Inquiry has announced that California physicist Leonard Tramiel, Ph.D., M.A., M.Phil., has joined the nonprofit organization’s Board of Directors.

Tramiel received his bachelor of science degree in physics from Santa Clara University in 1976, and earned master of arts, master of philosophy, and doctorate of philosophy degrees—all in physics—from Columbia University. He worked in the Columbia Astrophysics Lab under advisor Professor Gary Chanan, now at University of California at Irvine.

Fresh out of graduate school, Tramiel joined his father and two brothers when his father bought Atari from Warner Communications in 1984. For the next 12 years, Tramiel was involved in the development of Atari’s products as vice president of software, managing an internal group of a dozen programmers while interacting worldwide with software developers and contract programmers.

Since retiring from Atari at age 42, he has been concentrating on advocating science education (See “
The Great American Textbook Scandal
,” Forbes magazine, Oct. 30, 2000, for his work to improve the quality of science textbooks with the California Department of Education). Tramiel has also been a volunteer eighth-grade astronomy teacher for the past 10 years and has been volunteering at the Chabot Space and Science Center since 2000.

“I think that CFI’s mission of fostering a society based on reason and values is wonderful, in fact vital, for the future of humanity,” Tramiel said.

Tramiel fills a vacancy on the Board, created by the amicable resignation of Tom Casten, who resigned in December 2008.

The Center for Inquiry, a nonprofit, educational, advocacy, and
scientific-research think tank based in Amherst, New York, is also home
to the Council for Secular Humanism, founded in 1980; and the Committee
for Skeptical Inquiry (formerly CSICOP), founded in 1976. The Center
for Inquiry’s research and educational projects focus on three broad
areas: religion, ethics, and society; paranormal and fringe-science
claims; and sound public policy. The Center’s Web site is
www.centerforinquiry.net
.